Dom: Injury will make me stronger than ever

Dominic Samuel insists he will return better than ever, with injury likely to rule him out for the remainder of the season.

The striker sat down with iFollow Rovers to talk about his anterior cruciate ligament setback and it's fair to say the 24-year-old is adament it won't keep him down in the dumps.

Tony Mowbray revealed that he expects the forward and Ben Gladwin to miss the remainder of the campaign, with the duo suffering knee troubles.

But Samuel says he's only looking forward from now on in and won't be moping around.

“At the moment it’s just about getting my rehabilitation done and to be honest I’m just happy to be in amongst the boys," Dom told iFollow Rovers. "I’d rather do the rehab around the lads at the Senior Training Centre than at home on my own, so it could be worse.

“It’s going to be a lengthy one but I’m not absolutely certain on the time frame. It’ll be for a while, so as long as I keep myself busy and keep doing the exercises with the physios we have here then I'll remain positive.

“It’s the one injury that you don’t want in football because of the length of time you have out. But sometimes that happens, you do have injuries like this. Other times you have a clean season with no injuries whatsoever.

“It’s about keeping healthy and keeping positive really."

Samuel began the season in good form, scoring against a strong Everton team in pre-season before starting the opening game of the season against old club Ipswich Town at Portman Road.

But later in August was when disaster struck for the striker, as he went down against another former team in Reading in what looked an innocuous incident at Ewood Park.

“It was one of those things. The ball came to me against Reading and my knee just went. I felt something that I have never felt before and although I tried to play on for the next 30 seconds, I simply couldn’t do it," Dom added.

“From that point on I knew something wasn’t right. When I got the scan results back and it showed exactly what I’d done, it wasn’t something I liked. It was a real blow because I’d put in so much training in the off-season to hit the ground running this summer to make sure I’m right for this season.

“This will make me mentally stronger though and I’ll come back stronger for it, so there are positives to the injury, as strange as that sounds.

“I’ll take each week as it comes and have belief that I can come back quicker than what it would take any average person. But at the same time, you don;t want to rush it. I need to find that balance, taking each block as it comes.

“I’m positive anyway. Whatever it is I always look at the positives. These things happen for a reason and the positive for me is to come back better for it.

“I knew what the operation would be like. I’ve had operations in the past but after this recent one it was the worst I’ve felt. The surgeons were trying to tell me what I needed to do, but I was way off it. It felt like I was so tired but now I have a clear idea of what is happening."

We'll continue updates with Dom throughout his road to recovery this season.